Editorial: Election didn’t change need for health reform

Friday

Jan 22, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 22, 2010 at 9:19 PM

There are many things that did not change with the loss of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday: Thousands die each year because they lack access to affordable health care. 46 million Americans remain uninsured. Unless there is fundamental change, the growth in health-care spending will consume this country’s economic growth.

There are many things that did not change with the loss of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday:

* Thousands die each year because they lack access to affordable health care

* 46 million Americans remain uninsured

* Unless there is fundamental change, the growth in health-care spending will consume this country’s economic growth.

Voters in Massachusetts clearly rebelled against the health-care bill being crafted in Washington, D.C. But there’s an X-factor that too many pundits and politicians in both parties forgot: Massachusetts, under a law signed by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, already ensures that 97 percent of its residents have health care.

Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass., who voted for and still supports his state’s universal health-care law, discussed this Wednesday at a post-election news conference.

“There are some very good things in the national plan that’s being proposed, but if you look at — and really almost in a parochial manner — we need to look out for Massachusetts first,” Brown said. “The thing I’m hearing all throughout the state is, ‘What about us?’”

Under the plan in Congress, Massachusetts could end up paying more so that states that have not expanded health-care access can do so.

Meanwhile, in exchange for their votes, Democratic senators from states like Nebraska and Louisiana received legal bribes in the form of increased federal contributions to their state’s Medicaid programs, lessening the cost of health-care reform to those states.

In that context, plus the failure thus far by Democrats to turn the economy around and the anger over the bipartisan bailout of financial institutions, the Massachusetts vote makes complete sense.

But it is one election. Congress should not start over. Some have suggested passing a scaled-down bill with Republican support. Even if scaling back was a good idea, the Republican leaders in both houses have made it clear that their only priority is making sure the bill fails.

That’s unfortunate. Democrats have adopted many Republican ideas from what really is a six-decade debate going back to President Harry Truman. We hope at least a few Republican members will take a break from their victory dance long enough to use their new leverage to get additional money-saving ideas inserted into the bill.

Medical malpractice reform, the GOP’s pet health-care reform idea, would save the government $41 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s in addition to the $132 billion that would be saved under the Senate Democratic bill as it exists today.

Reforming health care to get near-universal access, by its nature, must be sweeping because the system has so many moving parts. Tinkering with one area has consequences in another.

For example, if it wants to keep the private insurance system intact, Congress can’t simply ban the insurance industry’s practice of refusing to insure sick people.

Why not? Introducing people with pre-existing health conditions to the system increases the industry’s risk. Nearly all healthy people also have to be put into the system to dilute the risk pool.

To do that, insurance has to be made affordable for poor and middle-income people via subsidies. Those subsidies have to be funded.

The legislation in the Senate, while far from perfect, was a result of months of careful thinking and negotiation about how to deal with each issue.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she does not have the votes today for House passage of the Senate’s bill. She needs to find them and send the bill to the president for his signature. Then, Congress should pass a cleanup bill that removes special favors and makes other changes that lawmakers from both houses — hopefully a bipartisan group — agree upon.